Personal Training in QLD

Personal Training in New Zealand

Motivation: What Is It?*

Thursday, 22 June 2017, By Josh Reed

First of all, what is motivation? Motivation (defined by
Wikipedia) is the reason behind people's actions, desires and
needs. Motivation can also be defined as one's direction to
behaviour or what causes a person to want to repeat behaviour and
vice versa. (Elliot, Andrew J 2001). Motivation, is internal and
external factors that stimulate desire and energy in people to be
continually involved and committed towards a goal, job or subject.
Motivation is different for everybody. Motivation is biological,
emotional, social and cognitive forces that make people behave in a
certain way.

Anyone who has ever had a goal has at one point or another
understood that simply having that goal or desire is not adequate
enough and there has to be some sort of motivation involved. When
achieving a goal there is almost 100% chance that you will have
obstacles come up and how you react to those obstacles will
ultimately decide how you go in regards to your goal. There are
three major components of motivation and they
are:Activation,PersistenceandIntensity.

Activationis described as your initial decision in doing
something. For example; starting a weights program towards a
specific goal.Persistenceis the constant attempts at your goal no
matter what obstacles may arise in the process.Intensitycan be
understood as how much effort and concentration goes into the goal.
For example, an athlete may only do the required training for a
specific event and no more, another athlete could do the required
training plus additional training, suggesting that the second
athlete has more intensity in motivation towards their goal.

So, what are the things that force us to act? There are
different theories that suggest this: Instincts, drives & needs
and arousals. Instincts are fixed patterns or structural behaviours
that we all have. There are biological instincts that are vital for
survival such as love, fear and cleanliness to name a few. Our
drives & needs can be described as our biological behaviours.
We have a need for food, water and sleep. The drive theory suggests
that we have biological drives and that our behaviours are
motivated to fill these drives. (Drive theory, Clark Hull). The
arousal theory suggests that people do things that maintain their
levels of arousal. For example, low arousal needs could be someone
who wants to relax listen to music, a person with high arousal
needs could want to bungee jump; thrill seeking needs.

Last of all, intrinsic and extrinsic motivation is the two
different types of motivation. Intrinsic refers to the motivation
within someone; such as doing something to prove someone wrong.
Whereas Extrinsic refers to the motivation outside someone,
generally by a reward, certain grades, fame etc.

I'm motivated to be better than I was yesterday in what I want
to do. I'm determined to be the best I can be! Motivation is a key
element for success and each and every one of us has some sort of
internal motivation. What exactly motivates us is different. I know
what mine is. What motivates you?